Trade Paper Back

For the past few years I’ve read predominantly comics from the Big Two comic publishers, Marvel and DC, and haven’t read much from the other comic publishers out there, such as Image Comics. Choker is a unique book, both in the artwork and the way in which the story is told, and is definitely in a darker vein than I would typically associate Image Comics’ books with. It’s also a book that I think benefits greatly from being read as part of a collected edition, as I’m not so sure it would read nearly as well if there was a month or two gap in between issues. The story in this book is deceptively simple, as ex-cop Johnny “Choker” Jackson, now a private eye, is called in by the Chief of Police to do a special job, which involves tracking down a notorious narcotics trafficker...

For years, my white whale in terms of out of print trade paperbacks I would look for at used book stores and comic book stores was X-Men: Fatal Attractions, an old, out of print tpb from the mid-90s. No matter where I looked, I just couldn’t find this volume at a reasonable price. But then, suddenly, Marvel solicited this X-Men: Fatal Attractions Hardcover, an oversized hardcover which not only collects the issues included in the original trade paperback, but also includes additional issues of both Uncanny X-Men and X-Factor. This is a gorgeous collection, reprinting one of the more influential X-Men storylines of the nineties, as it features the infamous scene of Magneto ripping Wolverine’s adamantium out of his body, which would change the way that Wolverine was handled for the rest of the nineties. It’s an oversized hardcover collection, and is much larger...

With Dark Knight Rises getting closer with every day, DC Comics is wisely reprinting the character’s first story arc, as well as his most notable, Knightfall. This volume reprints the landmark Knightfall storyline from 1993, in its entirety, the first time that DC has done so in one volume as opposed to two, as it did in the mid-90s. You can’t really beat this kind of value, as you get over 600 pages for just $34. This volume reads a lot better than one might expect, as it boasts strong writing and some great ideas which put Batman through the ultimate wringer. The early nineties weren’t full of a lot of good stories for characters like Batman and Superman, although there were definitely flashes of brilliance, and this storyline is an example of one of those flashes. Bane comes to town, and decides...

It’s hard to believe, but this is now the NINTH trade paperback that Marvel has released to cover the infamous Clone Saga of the nineties. With that being said, there are still at least two more trades to come, one solicited, one not, but with this collection you start to feel the walls closing in on the Clone Saga, as it starts to build towards its conclusion.After all of the time and effort spent turning Ben Reilly into Spider-Man and pushing Peter Parker and Mary Jane out of the book, it didn’t take long for Marvel to decide they had made a mistake, and start to take action towards rectifying that mistake. However, they moved relatively slowly with their plans to restore Peter Parker as the true Spider-Man, and push aside Ben Reilly, and as a result the stories start to get a bit thin, as you...

In the mid-nineties, shortly after Ben Reilly was revealed to be the “one and true Spider-Man”, Marvel published a relatively short-lived comic called Untold Tales of Spider-Man. The series was a rarity for the time, as it was an extremely well-written book set in Spider-Man’s past, long before clones were part of a Spider-Man fan’s lexicon. The series was clearly a blast for creators Kurt Busiek and Pat Olliffe, a book which had a very timeless feel to it, while at the same time being deeply rooted in the Silver Age era of Spider-Man. Busiek, no stranger to continuity, used the series to tell new stories set in Spider-Man’s first few years in the costume, set in and around the classic Stan Lee/Steve Ditko issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Whereas the Spider-Man books of the mid-90s were centered on Ben Reilly and trying to introduce an...

This new Batman: No Man’s Land volume continues DC’s effort towards reprinting the entirety of the No Man’s Land storyline, as the previous tpbs had only managed to cover a small amount of the overall storyline. For readers like myself, who weren’t really into the Batman comics of the time, and missed out on the majority of the storyline, this is a fantastic opportunity to read the entire storyline from start to finish, including all of the various tie-ins in the Bat-family of titles, in chronological order. Not only that, but these new collections are an excellent value, packaging twenty issues together for just $34 CDN. This is the second of four collections reprinting the entire storyline, you really get the most bang for your buck, and get to relive a milestone Batman storyline.This second volume continues the story of Batman trying to take back...

For the past couple of years, Jonathan Hickman has been writing an amazing, long-form Fantastic Four story, and yet it wasn’t until he relaunched Fantastic Four as FF that it first became abundantly clear that everything was connected, and that seemingly disparate events were in fact part of a much grander, greater whole. This collection, FF volume 1, collects the first five issues of the relaunched FF title, as all of the pieces and strings connecting all of his prior story threads were finally revealed. His run on Fantastic Four was most definitely solid and entertaining, but the stories contained in this volume were what really put the entire thing together, and elevated the story to a whole new level.The series picks up where Fantastic Four left off, with Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, having bravely sacrificed his life to save the lives of Ben Grimm, the...

This volume is the newest instalment in the Thunderbolts Classic line of trade paperbacks, chronicling the adventures of the original Thunderbolts team. This volume is the first to collect issues that haven’t been collected previously, encompassing Thunderbolts #6-14, plus Heroes for Hire #7. The first phase of the Thunderbolts book comes to a close in this volume, as issue #12 ended the original premise of the book, which Busiek took in new directions from issue #13 forwards. This collection doesn’t end with issue #12, however, instead including the two-parter which ran in isssues #13-14, setting up Thunderbolts Classic Volume 3 to showcase the new direction for the team which started in issue #15. The Thunderbolts’ original concept was that they were the Masters of Evil in disguise, pretending to be heroes in a world that recently lost the Avengers and Fantastic Four during the...

If you’re looking for an offbeat collection of stories to read, you can’t get much more offbeat than this collection of Mark Waid and Andy Kubert’s run on Ka-Zar, from 1997. This collection’s contents include Ka-Zar #8-14 and Ka-Zar Annual ’97, with the majority of the artwork being done by Andy Kubert, with some assists by Walter McDaniel, Louis Small Jr. and Aaron Lopresti. This is definitely some of the weirdest stuff to come out of Marvel Comics during the late ‘90s period, and it’s easy to see why, when you have a character like Ka-Zar taking on none other than Thanos. To say that these two characters aren’t even close on a power scale isn’t doing it justice, but that’s just what you have here, as Ka-Zar finds his brother in cahoots with Thanos, who’s trying to get himself free of a dimension that he’s...

It’s a great time to be a fan of the Avengers comics from the 1970s-1980s, as Marvel Comics continues to release new trade paperbacks collecting the adventures of the Avengers in preparation for the release of the Avengers movie on May 4th. This particular collection, Avengers: Solo Avengers Classic Volume 1, collects the first ten issues of the Solo Avengers title which started in 1987, featuring Hawkeye in a starring role. The concept behind Solo Avengers was a fantastic one- each issue would feature a story focusing on Hawkeye, and the back-up in each issue would focus on a different member of the Avengers, typically a less well-known character who didn’t have the benefit of his own solo title, like Captain America, Thor or Iron Man. As a result, this is a really eclectic...

When this trade paperback was originally solicited, it was to be called Spider-Man: The PSAs, but upon release it’s now entitled Amazing Spider-Man Fights Substance Abuse. It’s a shame that its title was changed, because it also reflects a change in the contents included in this volume, in particular taking out a few issues that I was extremely excited about having collected in trade paperback form. In 1990, Marvel Comics published a variety of public service announcement comic books for Canadian consumers, which dealt with a variety of societal issues including bullying, hit and runs and drugs, and featured Spider-Man in Canadian cities, taking on some of his classic villains. Because of the change in title/contents, this collection only...

With the release of the Avengers movie just over two months away, Marvel Comics is ramping up their output of Avengers-related merchandise, with various new ongoing series, limited series, trade paperbacks and hardcover collections featuring the team being published. This hardcover is a good example, as it manages to both follow-up on 2009’s Avengers: Hawkeye Premiere Hardcover, and provide additional exposure for Hawkeye, who’s soon going to be featured in the Avengers movie. The first Hawkeye collection (which, incidentally, came out earlier this month in softcover for the first time) featured a more happy-go-lucky version of Hawkeye, and stands in stark contrast to how the character is portrayed in this collection. Included in this hardcover is the Hawkeye four-issue limited series from 1994, a follow-up story originally published in Marvel Comics Presents #159-161, and the Hawkeye: Earth’s Mightiest Marksman one-shot from 1998. The stories from...

Avengers By Brian Michael Bendis Volume 2 is aptly named, collected issues #7-12 & 12.1 of Avengers, which chronicled the adventures of the Avengers during the Heroic Age which followed the events of Siege. As is all-too-common in modern comics, despite there being seven issues in this volume, six of them tell one story, with issue #12.1 telling a complete story, which sets up a future story, which as of yet has not yet seen print, but is currently being worked on and prepped by Marvel for release in 2012.Reading this story in its collected format is quite a different experience from reading it in monthly instalments, and ultimately it’s more enjoyable and fares better as an entertaining story. The story features the return of The Hood, who, truth-to-tell, is one...

Red Skull: Incarnate is Greg Pak’s second mini-series for Marvel Comics to examine the origins of a character linked with World War II, with the first having been the extremely well-received Magneto Testament released in 2008. This time around, however, instead of examining a young Magneto’s life growing up during the time of the Holocaust at a Concentration Camp, Pak focuses on the beginnings of the Red Skull, Captain America’s long-time nemesis, and one of the greatest villains of the Marvel Universe. Although this isn’t a sequel by any means to Magneto Testament, it’s hard not to compare the two series, simply because of the subject matter, historical context, and the fact that it’s Greg Pak writing both mini-series. Personally, I think that this is the harder story to tell, with the rise and development of the man who would become the Red Skull, as opposed to...

This new volume of Avengers Assemble continues collecting the Avengers title from the Heroes Return era from 1998-1999, when Kurt Busiek and George Perez collaborated on the title. In terms of classic Avengers runs, this one has become quite well-known and revered, as the creative team breathed new life into the franchise, after the debacle that was Heroes Reborn, not to mention the depths the franchise had sunk to just prior to that, with Avengers: The Crossing. It’s not much of a stretch to say that if it weren’t for the work of Busiek and Perez revitalizing and restoring what the Avengers were and could be, we may not have gotten the even larger revamp of the Avengers concept a few years later in 2004, when Brian Michael Bendis launched New Avengers.This volume collects issues #0, #12-23 and Annual 1999, as Busiek/Perez continued their amazing run into...

This new Batman collection features the first few months’ worth of stories from the mammoth No Man’s Land storyline that ran through all of the Batman books throughout 1999. No Man’s Land was and still is a hugely ambitious story which saw Gotham City, recently ravaged by a lethal Contagion and then a massive earthquake (as seen in Batman: Cataclysm), cut off from the rest the United States, abandoned, disavowed, and left to rot. The storyline started out a few months ahead of where the comics had been at the time, as the prelude to this storyline (not included in this volume) saw Bruce Wayne appealing to the United States government not to abandon the city, but instead work with the city to rebuild it and not let it whither and die.What sets this storyline apart from almost every other Batman story is how it...

I can't say that I was expecting too much from a promotional comic anthology. Particularly one that calls itself “The Epic Anthology inspired by the film”. The name roster is decently impressive, citing the various artists and writers and their work, and suggesting that this may, in fact, contain some gems. This proved to be rather apt, with a weak and muddled first half giving way to an enjoyable second. “Rise of the Olympians”, the first story in the “Gods” section, is orange. Everything is painted in a rich amber light, which occasionally makes details hard to read. The writing is pretty typical for a prologue – lots of exposition summarizing the general feel of the entire chapter. “The Pride of Prometheus”, like all feel-good stories,...

With a new Spider-Man movie coming out next year, it's not a surprise that Marvel would get into the game early, putting out a ton of new collections featuring Spider-Man. What is a surprise, however, is that we would get this collection of David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane's run prior to getting The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Volume 2, picking up where the first volume left off a few years ago, with the first Amazing Spider-Man issue penciled by John Romita Sr (the first volume's last issue was Steve Ditko's last issue on the book). That being said, I can't say that I'm complaining, as this book collects Todd McFarlane's famous run on Amazing Spider-Man, prior to his leaving the book to launch Spider-Man, which he would both write and illustrate. The impact and importance of this run can never be overstated, because Todd McFarlane single-handedly...

Last year, Marvel released Acts of Vengeance Omnibus, one which I was so excited about when it was first announced months earlier, and devoured upon release. This year, the companion volume has been released, much like last year's X-Men: Inferno Crossovers, collecting all the other crossover issues for Acts of Vengeance that weren't included in the initial release. The initial release of Acts of Vengeance included only those titles that were a bit more central to the plot, mainly the Avengers-related books, which left a lot of odds and ends books uncollected- at least until now. If you're looking for an absolute smorgasbord of comic book goodness, you can't go wrong with Acts of Vengeance Crossovers Omnibus. The cover matches up with the cover of the Acts of Vengeance Omnibus to form one image as well. The basic premise of Acts of Vengeance was...

Marvel continues right along with their "Epic" volumes reprinting the infamous Clone Saga that hit Spider-Man in the mid-90s, however now they've succumbed to their favourite practice of renumbering, as this volume is The Complete Ben Reilly Epic Volume One as opposed to being Volume Six of the Complete Clone Saga Epic. But make no mistake, it's the sixth overall volume, seven if you include their recent release of Spider-Man: The Original Clone Saga, and not that great a jumping on point if you don't already own the rest of the trade paperback collection. This new collection starts off the weakest of the line thus far, as the first story presented is the book that capped Peter Parker's tenure as Spider-Man, as he packs up his and MJ's belongings and they move to Portland. It's not a bad issue, but it really belonged at the back...

This new hardcover collection of X-Men: Fall of the Mutants is an omnibus in all but name, collecting the contents of 2001’s “Fall of the Mutants” tpb with an additional 552 pages of content. There are three stories being told in this collection, with each one focusing on one of the X-teams that were active in 1988. The Uncanny X-Men face off against The Adversary, a mystical threat with ties to Forge and Storm, resulting in a major change in their status quo. X-Factor battles Apocalypse, as their former teammate Angel is turned into Death, one of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. The New Mutants go up against the militant pro-human group “The Right|, which leads to the shocking death of one of their members resulting in their striking out on their own, away from Magneto’s tutelage and the X-mansion....